The Advocate's 18 Favorite Films at Outfest 2013

This year's Outfest features more than 150 films. The Advocate has chosen 18 of our favorites.

BY Daniel Reynolds Sunnivie Brydum and Diane Anderson-Minshall

July 11 2013 4:00 AM ET

C.O.G.Thursday, July 11, 8 p.m. at Orpheum Theater

Few films at Outfest are set to attract as much attention as C.O.G., the first film adaptation gay author David Sedaris has ever allowed of his work. Written and directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez, the film follows a cocky Northeastern college grad who travels to Oregon to work on an apple farm with a girlfriend (we can’t tell if it’s a girl who is a friend or a girlfriend). After she strands him there, he ends up at a factory where he meets an aggressive, working class gay man — and runs like hell from him in one of the movie’s funniest scenes. The film stars Jonathan Groff, the Tony-nominee who is best known as Rachel’s ex on Glee. Groff lends a curiously introspective, is-he-or-isn’t-he allure to the fish-out-of-water story. Is he an uppity gay Yale grad? Or a love-spurned straight guy, pretending to be more highbrow than he really is? His supporting cast, especially American Horror Story’s Denis O’Hare, as well as Corey Stoll, Dean Stockwell, Casey Wilson, and Troian Bellisario, offer compelling (and sometimes heartbreaking) performances as well. Either way, the movie is winner — a slow, thoughtful, sometimes hilarious little gem.